Weekend Extra: Alex Riel Meets Bill Evans

Listeners rarely have the opportunity to witness world-class musicians prepare for a performance. In the autumn of1966, pianist Bill Evans toured Europe with his regular bassist, Eddie Gomez. Danish drummer Alex Riel joined them for a concert in Copenhagen that also included the Swedish singer Monica Zetterlund. New to Evans and his repertoire, Riel met him and Gomez in the studios of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.

In our age of quick-hit internet videos, this 45-minute rehearsal may seem slow, but to those interested in how music is made, it can bring revelations. The high quality of the black and white video lends itself to full-screen viewing. Here and there, conversational levels are as low as the lighting—it can be helpful to keep your hand near the volume control. All rights to this video are reserved to Alex Riel and the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.

Consumer alert: the “related” item in the center position below contains a stretch of the same video in far lower quality.

To see Monica Zetterlund rehearsing with the Evans trio, watch this shorter, better-known video.

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Comments

In 1970, Monica Zetterlund came to the Canary Islands with her boyfriend/pianist and sat in with the group I was working with on a year-long gig. She was lovely and sang well. That gig had pianist Irv Rochlin (aka Irv Craig), Duke Morgan (Jaye P. Morgan’s brother) bassist, trumpeter Don Jetter, guitarist Jimmy Gourley, drummer Didier ________ (Kenny Clarke’s student), Dexter Gordon on tenor sax, and various other horn players for six-weeks intervals.

The relaxed way in which Bill leads this rehearsal, which seems to be as much for the TV crew as for Alex, makes this video really special. It has to be a real challenge for Alex, but there’s never the slightest hint of tension. The highlight for me are some especially lovely closeups that provide a intimate view of Bill that I’ve never witnessed. It’s a lovely time capsule. So is the rehearsal with Monica.

The sound is great, except for the piano, which is pretty muddy. Bill seemed to like a mic shoved into one of the holes, and probably asked the studio people to do that. He moved one of my mics to that position when he played the club where I was working in the mid-’70s. At my first opportunity I moved it back to where I had it. In the hole, it sounded muffled.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

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A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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